


Expensive Mistakes

by mucynt



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Study, I say the word love 54 times, I went crazy with those, Light Angst, Love Confessions, M/M, Metaphors, Miya Atsumu (love), No Beta because I hate being percieved, POV Miya Atsumu, Song fic, atsumu centric, lmao almost forgot that one it's like the whole point, that's pretty much it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-27 01:33:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30115107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mucynt/pseuds/mucynt
Summary: Whichever way you looked at it, Miya Atsumu’s life was governed by love.But what happens when that love is never reciprocated?
Relationships: Miya Atsumu/Sakusa Kiyoomi
Comments: 19
Kudos: 59





	Expensive Mistakes

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by the song [Wilson (Expensive Mistakes)](https://open.spotify.com/track/2W6kVW3UZ3hwr4qbfCDp6B?si=UDlKEBIDQ_2n0votLYP8Vw) by Fall Out Boy. 
> 
> Or at least that was my intention. 
> 
> You don't need to listen to it to understand but the song is a banger so what are you waiting for? 
> 
> Enjoy <3

Whichever way you looked at it, Miya Atsumu’s life was governed by love.

Even before he knew what love was, the feeling poured out of him like a river running its course down a stream. Easily. Abundantly. Relentlessly. Impossible to stop.

The first time he felt it crash through his chest he was holding his crying brother in his arms. They were young. So young that Atsumu was afraid that the feeling inside him was perhaps too big for his body. But as soon as he saw the first tear roll down Osamu’s cheek, he was overpowered with the need to hold him tight and tell him that everything was going to be alright. He couldn’t even remember what Osamu had been crying about, but at that moment it didn’t matter. The only certainty was the pounding of Atsumu’s heart telling them both that as long as he was around, Osamu would always have something to hold on to. 

He felt it again as he stood in front of a net and watched the ball gracefully bounce against a set of fingers. “I’ll let ya hit it nice and easy,” the man had said. Easy. You pour your everything into the set and you show the other how much you care, how you will always have their back and bring the best out of them. That’s what Atsumu excelled at. Every game, every rally, that familiar feeling flowed from each of his ten fingers and spilled all over the court. As long as his heart kept pounding like that, everyone else on his side of the net could count on him to make them shine. 

He felt it countless times and it only kept growing stronger. For his family, for his friends, for the sport, for every single thing that caught his eye and touched his heart. Miya Atsumu was an endless source of love. 

As the years passed, he became more acquainted with the feeling. Whatever he did, wherever he went, and whoever he talked to, he found love. To him, existing and loving were equals, and that was something that not many could understand. No one experienced the feeling the same way he did. Not as intensely. Not as naturally. His love was all-consuming. And because of that, his love was usually mistaken for something else.

They called him obnoxious, loud, rude, self-centered. They said he was too much. He paid no mind to it. He knew they had a lot left to learn. Love was easy, but it wasn’t simple. 

So he kept on giving. He gave, and gave, and gave, and not once did he run out of stock. 

But the problem with giving so much is that the empty spaces you leave behind are not easy to fill back up. 

He never expected anything in return for what he offered. Love wasn’t supposed to be a trade, but a gift. There’s no meaning behind a gift if you expect the other to pay you back. And yet, in moments of doubt and selfishness, he couldn’t help but think, “Do I not deserve the retribution? And, if I never get it, will I ever run out of love to give?”

It wasn’t as if he never received any, but when he did it was usually faint, almost imperceptible. His mother’s homemade treats, a small gesture from his brother, a gift from his captain. He felt it, but it was nowhere near as strong as the one from his own supply. 

That is why the court became his safe place. He could pour all his love into the game and still feel content when it wasn’t returned. There was no need for any compensation, following his passion was enough to keep his heart at ease. Volleyball would never leave him heartbroken, so it became his one true love. 

The court was his paradise. Whenever he stepped in front of the net every little shred of self-doubt vanished and his heart opened up. It was as if he woke up from an endless slumber and all his senses heightened to match the pounding in his chest, leaving him high on the sensation. There was nowhere else where he could spread his love that freely so, beckoned by the feeling, he stuck around. 

He climbed up the ladder, he gave it his best, and he made it to the top. He should have known that once you make it there, the only way you can go is down. 

Before he knew it, he had woken up on the wrong side of paradise. 

Inside the court he was fine. His skills were never at fault. Neither were the people on his side of the net. It was everything else that came along with standing on that stage that broke him. 

Atsumu was aware that going pro meant putting yourself out there for everyone to see. That little voice in his head, the one that begged for his love to be reciprocated, beckoned all eyes to be on him. He wanted the praise, the cheers, the sound of his name resonating throughout the stadium. It was greedy, but he wanted to feel like he deserved it. In order for that to happen, he needed to put on a mask.

He had never considered himself to be worthy of the love he so longed for, so he needed to become someone who was. In wanting to be cared for, he became a stranger in his own eyes. It did the trick. The praise came, the cheers became louder each passing day, and the sound of his name resonated in his ears long after the game was done. He had asked for love and love was handed to him in vast amounts. But being an expert in it, he could tell when he was being offered a knock-off. 

The world grew to love Miya Atsumu, but their intentions were misguided. He had wanted to fit in, to be deserving of their affections, and in the process, he had become a fake. Miya Atsumu was not the guy standing in front of the cameras, putting on a smile. He was not the guy shaking hands with fans and throwing witty comments around, earning choruses of laughter. That’s the name they knew him by, but it wasn’t him. 

The real Miya Atsumu was in the shadows. He was Miya Atsumu on the court. Miya Atsumu in the dark of night. Miya Atsumu next to his brother, because there is no hiding from your other half. That was not the man everyone loved. What they loved was a headline, a pretty face behind the flash of a camera. It was only fitting that their love was as false as the man itself. 

And yet, he persisted. He figured that it was better to accept a fake love than to receive none at all. Maybe that’s what he truly deserved.

Besides, he still had his personal share to keep him holding on. His love for the sport was constantly invigorated by each play, each touch of the ball against his fingers, and each smile plastered in his spiker’s faces. There was no reason to walk away from something that made him feel so alive, despite all that came with it. He could dwell on the rest in the quiet of his empty home, but inside the court, he became Miya Atsumu, embodiment of love, his truest form. Everything else was collateral. 

And then came Sakusa Kiyoomi. 

The second the man stormed into his paradise, Atsumu’s heart latched onto that set of obsidian eyes with an all-too-familiar hunger. The spark in his chest became a burning flame that threatened to burst out and set everything ablaze. 

He was enthralled by his presence, enlivened by his mere existence. The world around him had become make-believe, but Sakusa Kiyoomi was a wonder. He was real. He was entrancing. He was worthy of everything Atsumu wasn’t, so Atsumu gave it all. 

But, once again, he found himself dreaming of restitution. If he was going to pour his heart out incessantly, wouldn’t it be better for his reserves to be replenished? He was willing to be selfless, to provide without a need for reciprocation. Kiyoomi deserved nothing less. But the ache in Atsumu’s heart told a more selfish story. 

So he did what he knew best. He put on an act, he performed the same tricks that he knew always made his audience roar. If the world found that puppet worthy of love, then Atsumu had no choice but to take that shape in front of Kiyoomi as well. It wouldn’t be too hard. At that point, the mask was almost indistinguishable from his real face. 

But apparently, the success of the hoax wasn’t always guaranteed. While his gimmicks were met with standing ovations from the crowd, Kiyoomi’s face showed nothing but indifference and disdain at the foolish displays. Every joke, comeback, and shtick that brought wide grins onto everyone else’s faces only served to accentuate the frown on his. 

Atsumu’s heart was doubling as a scale, one side dedicated to his fans, the other bearing Kiyoomi’s name. The more the world put on one end, the more you noticed how empty the other end was. 

His unreciprocated devotion brought with it a nostalgia of simpler times when he was only learning the meaning of love. Back when he hadn’t experienced the bitter side of it. He was now more aware than ever about what real love looked like, the feeling having never wavered on his part. 

Miya Atsumu was an impostor but his love was very much authentic, for his brother, for the sport, and above all for Sakusa Kiyoomi. The downside was that this only served to put things into perspective. The burden he had been sweeping under the rag all this time, pretending not to care about it, became too evident. He wasn’t worthy or deserving of love. He put everything on the line, gave everything he had, and got nothing in return. Well, not really nothing, but what he did get was insincere, fabricated. It didn’t count. He couldn’t keep telling himself it did. 

He loved his brother, but Osamu’s love for him had always felt a little weaker. He loved volleyball, but it forced him to shapeshift into an unrecognizable figure who only received fake praise. He loved Sakusa Kiyoomi, but Sakusa Kiyoomi was a wonder, he had become his new paradise, and the thing about paradises and wonders is that they are always just out of your reach. They are sacred. They are untouchable. They don’t belong to you. Sometimes, you don’t deserve them. 

Atsumu’s mind clouded with doubt and regret. Had he done something wrong? Was there a point in trying to keep going? He figured that somewhere along the line he had made a mistake. Maybe he should have toned things down, loved a little quieter and softer. Maybe he shouldn’t have tried to become someone else to get what he wanted, even if honesty would have gotten him nowhere. He wasn’t any better off now. 

Whatever the mistake, it had been at the expense of tainting all the love in his life and leaving him alone with his broken heart. 

He began dreaming of running away, of quitting and leaving it all behind. He wondered what would happen if he turned his back on everyone and just left. Would they even notice? Why should he stay around for a fake love? Or worse, for a non-existent one, while his was too real, too present, too heavy in his chest. 

Despite these thoughts, he never carried out the fantasy. It felt like it would be an even more expensive mistake, or maybe he just didn’t have the guts to actually do it. After all, he was still selfish. He couldn’t walk away from something his heart desired so much, even if it hurt. 

So he stayed. He kept on pretending. He yearned for what he could never have and mourned for his wasted love. The black clothes on his back were fitting for his sorrow. The scale in his heart broke into pieces and the shreds punctured him inside out. 

Miya Atsumu was at last loveless.

* * *

The world carried on like nothing had changed, like the Miya Atsumu they knew and loved - despite the falsity of it - was intact and thriving. No one knew what hid behind the curtain, that if they were to pull it back all they would find was a broken man holding onto his aching heart, trying to stop everything in it from spilling out and leaving him hollow. 

The season was coming to an end and he could at least bask in the joy of knowing he had done his best, a sliver of hope and pride in the shambles of his life. He stood in the locker rooms, listening to his teammates excitedly talk about an upcoming party, and barely managed to form a response when they asked if he would attend. 

For weeks he had been locked up in his room whenever he got the chance and everyone was starting to get suspicious as to why. He was usually the life of the party, the one that enticed the rest to live life to the fullest, but that will had vanished some time ago. It was best to keep to himself as much as he could now and avoid further damage. 

He entertained the idea of not going, even if it would raise further suspicion from his team. He could keep his act going during the day when he had no other choice but to be in the spotlight, but if the opportunity arose to keep hiding in the shadows then he took it gladly. 

Besides, he knew Kiyoomi would be there and playing pretend in front of him was not as easy as it had seemed before. Whenever he looked into those dark eyes he fell in love all over again but also noticed how they never shined for him like he hoped they would. Whenever Kiyoomi was close, Atsumu wanted to reach for his hand and place it on his heart to show him how it beat for him, but he knew that hand would draw back at the touch. Around him, Atsumu felt whole and empty at the same time. 

He decided to go, if only to stop the imminent questioning about his seclusion. He would stay there long enough to appease the others and then go back home, where he could drop the suffocating veil that had become his disguise. He got dressed slowly, avoiding his own reflection in the mirror, dragged his feet out the door, and reluctantly made his way to where the others were waiting, hoping that his late arrival wasn’t too telling of his desire to be anywhere else but there. 

With his usual faux smile plastered on his face, he exchanged his greetings to make his presence known and everyone welcomed him with glee. He made some rounds around the group and listened to seemingly endless conversations with pretend interest, humming his agreement at whatever nonsense was being said, unable to focus on the words. His mind was running at a fast pace, not really able to keep up with the chaos around him, not when his eyes were focused on a tall frame with dark curls and porcelain skin. 

Kiyoomi was standing all the way across the room, out of reach as usual, and Atsumu didn’t dare close the distance between them. He was afraid of what he might say if he got too close to those eyes, afraid that the thoughts racing through his head would spill out of him like venom and give away his facade. Was there any way to explain his feelings without suffering an even more dooming rejection? Were there any words to mend his broken heart, even if it meant shedding his skin in front of the one he loved most? Silence was the less troublesome route. 

When his consciousness got too loud he decided to drown it out and numb the painful throbbing inside his chest. He sat down at the bar, far from the others, and sipped drink after drink, the alcohol slowly clouding his thoughts and wiping away all inhibitions. His eyes never left that dark looming figure, but the distance was starting to look less treacherous with each sip. 

Before he knew it he was up and on his way to where Kiyoomi stood, alone and unaware. Atsumu planted his feet before him, all past worries long forgotten and filled with a sense of determination that only existed because his mind was too dazed to stop his heart from leading the way. Only then did Kiyoomi turn around, instantly taking note of the state Atsumu was in, which was nothing less than deplorable. And all of a sudden, like water spurting from a broken dam, unable to be held in any longer, everything that had been haunting Atsumu’s mind for months escaped from his lips. 

“Omi-kun,” the syllable dragged at the nickname, “yer so cruel to me.”

“What are you on about, Miya? I didn’t do anything to you.”

“Yes, ya have. Ya jus’ don’t know it,” the tone of his voice was soft, but Kiyoomi could see the pain in his eyes. A pain that was apparently his fault. 

“Do enlighten me then.”

“Yer cruel ‘cause ya walked into my life with no regard whatsoever for what it did to my heart,” he clutched his shirt as if trying to pull his heart out and show him the damage. “Yer cruel ‘cause ya make it so easy to love ya but so fuckin’ hard to reach ya, and ‘cause ya remind me that I never will ev’ry time ya push me away.”

While Atsumu’s heart poured open, Kiyoomi’s halted to a stop. 

“But ya know what the cruelest thing is, Omi-kun?” honesty wiped the drunk grin off his face. “The cruelest thing is that the whole world showers me with love but I couldn’t give less of a fuck about them when my whole world is actually right in front of me and doesn’t offer me a single drop.”

The truth had been laid out. Even in his drunken stupor Atsumu became aware of what that entailed, but there was no taking it back. Kiyoomi was not his, he never had been, so was he really running the risk of losing him when he hadn’t belonged to him in the first place? He had already lost everything else along the way, including himself, so putting it all on the line could not bury him any deeper than rock bottom. 

“Atsumu…”

“I’ve been in love with lovin’ for as long as I can remember, but it was always one-sided, ya know?” he didn’t want to hear what Kiyoomi had to say. He wasn’t sure he could take it. “So I craved for glory in the eyes of the world, and I got it. I did. Ev’ry day thousands of people shout my name and cheer for me. But numbers don’t matter, Omi. ‘Cause thousands may love me, but I only care about one. And he doesn’t love me back.”

The look on Kiyoomi’s face was enough to sober Atsumu up. For the first time since he had begun dreaming of it, he could see those dark eyes from up close, and they were staring directly into his, a storm dancing in their depths, the meaning of which Atsumu could not put his finger on. He’d be foolish to expect it meant something good. 

“Atsumu,” it sounded like a condemnation, “do you know why those people are so obsessed with you?”

Atsumu knew why but he felt shame in admitting it. 

“It’s because they love the idea of you,” Kiyoomi continued, not waiting for an answer. “The idea you’ve put in their heads that you are some perfect individual that is always on his A-game, always willing to put on a smile like you have no care in the world.”

Wasn’t that what people wanted? Wasn’t that the only way to be worthy?

“People fell for that because it’s all they could see. Because they idolize you and forget that you are an actual person. But you never fooled me, Atsumu. Not once. And I know you tried.”

He had been caught. “Did ya know?”

“Of course I did. I knew that wasn’t the real you, I could see past it the second you tried to trick me. I think at some point it did become a part of you, the joking, the flirting, the making an ass of yourself,” he chuckled, “but that’s not all there is to it.”

“It’s not?” the image he had of himself had become too blurry at that point. 

“No, and maybe not everyone realizes, but I did. I know that you care more than you let on, that you carry wipes in case I ever ran out, that you walk in front of me to clear the way when the place is too crowded, that you go out of your way to always make sure I feel safe and comfortable,” a soft smile appeared on his face. “And I do. I always do around you.”

“Then why do ya hate me?”

“I don’t hate you, Atsumu. I just hate watching you pretend to be someone you’re not. You don’t have to do that for people to love you. They will love you no matter what, they’d be idiots not to. And you definitely don’t have to do it for me.” 

Atsumu felt warmth seep into his cold hands and looked down to find those fingers that had once seemed so tantalizing interlace with his, the tight grip grounding him like an anchor at sea. He met Kiyoomi’s eyes once again and was surprised to find that same warmth shining in them, his heart swelling at the sight, filling the emptiness. 

“You can drop the act because I don’t need you to give me reasons to love you, reasons that _you_ think make you deserving of it. It’s not you who gets to decide,” a firm clenching of hands marked the next words. “I love you because _I_ choose to. No ifs, ands, or buts.”

The beating of Atsumu’s heart was unfamiliar, the feeling unknown. To him, love had always been like a burning candle. A source of warmth that, when ignited, melts your core and drains you in the process. A metamorphic act of giving all you have for the comfort of others that alters you substantially. Atsumu thought he had burned out long ago, not much left in him to keep the fire going, but upon hearing Kiyoomi’s words, so full of sincerity and care, he felt the spark in his chest light up. 

Burning passion is easy, but every source has its limits if there is no restoration. He realized then that love was not a candle, but a bonfire. It can burn on its own for a while, but it’s the constant input of kindle that makes it shine the brightest, a motivation to persist thanks to mutual effort. 

Loving Kiyoomi was easy, but if what he was saying was true, if he really did love him back, then easy was not going to cut it. Subtlety was out of the question, there was no more hiding in the shadows. He was going to work for it and pour every ounce of himself if it meant it was going to last because this was not a fire he could let die out. 

“Do ya really mean it, Omi?” 

“With all my heart. So promise me something, ok? You stop trying to hide from me and every day I will show you just how much I mean it. Deal?”

“Deal,” it was the first real smile he had shown in a while. 

Breaking that promise would be the worst possible mistake he could make. How could he when paradise had opened its doors for him? 

He took one step forward, leaving the mask in his wake, and let himself be taken in. It would be hard work, but he would eventually go back to his original shape, the one that knew the honesty of true love. He had time. There was no need to hurry. Not now that he had a helping hand.

The distance between them was no more, their embrace mending every broken piece and igniting a new flame. When their eyes met again, it felt like coming home. 

Perhaps wonders were not as unreachable as Atsumu had once thought. 

Perhaps he could learn to become one himself.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you if you made it this far on my rambling about love. 
> 
> Also thank you to [Valerie](https://twitter.com/valerie_at_apt3?s=21) who talked to me about the song and inspired me to write this fic. 
> 
> Please feel free to come scream at me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/mucynt) because Atsumu (love) is my passion but I have range and also enjoy clowning him on the daily. 
> 
> Thank you for reading <3


End file.
